Friday, January 22, 2016

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

(I Samuel 24:3-21; Mark 3:13-19)

The man sat down.  He said that he had five children -- four still living.  He said one died in childbirth and gave his name.  He resembled Jesus in the gospel today naming his apostles.

Jesus gives special names to three of the troupe.  He will call Simon “Peter” or “Rock” because of the latter’s dependability.  He names James and John “Boanerges” because of their impetuosity.  Jesus does not equivocate like many others.  He names his disciples as he finds them with their various virtues and vices.


Today we remember fifty million or so mostly nameless victims of abortion.  We cannot give each an individual name like the man who still has a large place in his heart for his stillborn.  But we can offer a prayer for them collectively.  We can also name the crime that blithely allowed them to die.  Let’s call it “irresponsible individualism.”  By doing so, we are saying that their right to life has been denied so that their parents might forsake the responsibility of caring for them.  But let us not condemn those parents too quickly.  No doubt, many of them were victimized in different ways that moved them to do such a horrible thing.  So we want to include them also in our prayer today.